The new media monopoly

What Hacker News says

1. Atlas667Jan 2022
   They cite Ben Bagdikian the writer of "The New Media Monopoly" a decent book exposing the relationships between advertisers and media companies albeit his liberal perspective makes him incapable of realizing that this is inherent to the capitalist mode of production of media (like most of the people on this site). It is an unavoidable circumstance of this mode of production, it is the root of fake news and propaganda, and legislation cannot stop it.
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2. PaulHouleAug 2025
   Yes.

   The situation with the press is far worse than you think for structural reasons, it's a bit naive that you're asking this kind of question at all.

   I'm old enough that I've had an experience where an "event" (French theorists would say l' événement) happens and

   -- I watch it live on TV

   -- I watch it again on the evening news

   -- I read about it in the daily paper the next day

   -- I read about it in a weekly paper (say The Economist) next week

   -- I read about it in a monthly paper (say The Atlantic) next month

   And then 25-30 years later a book comes out that is meticulous researched, they looked over all the primary sources, they interviewed everyone they could, etc. The picture of l' événement that I get from that book is entirely different than the picture that I recall having at the time, some of that is drift in my memories, some of that is the failure of my meaning making at the time, some of that is errors of commission, omission, connotation and denotation on the part of the media. I take the blame for my memory (although everybody's memory drifts over time), but the media + the meaning making process are fairly considered to be a system, and it doesn't work well.

   To back this up

   -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armies_of_the_Night

   -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Loathing_on_the_Campa...

   -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Fictions (anything by Didion!)

   -- https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/News/The-Inf... (1971 book that predicted you'd be reading the news on the WWW around 1980 or so -- the author prepared a report for the RAND corporation and was really angry and bitter that the media industry didn't want to make the investments to make it happen... and thus was the origin story of a legendary critic of the media who is more famous for https://www.amazon.com/effete-conspiracy-other-crimes-press/... and https://www.amazon.com/New-Media-Monopoly-Completely-Chapter...)

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3. jevotenFeb 2022
   You are correct that nothing illegal happened, no legal rights were violated (except possibly Rogan's contract, which is irrelevant to a discussion about principles). You may even be correct that it has always been like this - yes, media are far more consolidated than in the past*, but new entrants to the media landscape (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc..), while even more consolidated, don't control their platforms as strictly as traditional media, so it's hard to judge if dissenting speech is more or less suppressed than in the past.

   But that doesn't make it not censorship, or morally justify concealing it.

   *In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out [..] In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth. - https://www.corporations.org/media/

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4. bedigerJan 2012
   Ben Bagdikian called. He wants his truth back. http://www.amazon.com/New-Media-Monopoly-Completely-Chapters...
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